At 16:48 -0700 13/05/2001, Charles F. Munat wrote:
>If you want your
>documents to be intelligible, then you must structure them.
Agreed. I spend a lot of time on structure.
> the average user treats his word processor
>as a glorified typewriter. He may bold text instead of underlining it, he
>might add colors or even experiment with italics and larger type sizes or
>fancy type faces (usually with horrifying results)
Agreed. I've seen many many real life examples of this.
>Do your students the
>favor of making them conscious of the relationship of presentation to
>structure and meaning, and show them the proper way to format a
>document--with Styles. You aren't doing them any favors by teaching them
>that formatting is there just for "looks," as if that were even possible.
I do in fact teach Styles, but not in the first two hour course,
which is where I drew my example text from and where this discussion
originated. One of the many arts of teaching to build-up learning,
to begin with smaller skills and concepts and use those blocks to
create ever more advanced sets of skills. Learning to select a word
or two and format them individually is very much more appropriate for
my target learners as a basic knowledge. Once they understand that
concept then we can later introduce the stylesheet concept, which is
really just applying bulk, appropriate formatting in a consistent and
intelligent way which aligns with structure.
I'm very uncomfortable with a discussion which began with a query
about HTML tags now turning into a critique (based on insufficient
data) of my teaching methods. I would suggest that it return to HTML
and accessibility discussion.
Another list I'm on discourages off-topic posts which must be "paid
for" with a tip. I find that a very useful approach which could well
be adopted more widely. Here then is a tip:
<tip>When creating instructional web pages code the HTML first, with
structure in mind, and then later create a Stylesheet with your
presentation suggestions. This helps focus the mind on what is being
said.</tip>
Cheers,
Miraz
--
If you want to double your success rate, you have to quadruple your
failure rate.
-Thomas Watson, IBM Founder